Sunday, 31 January 2016

A London commemorative plaque for every day in 2016. The plaques are selected from all walks of life, and all points of the London compass – and I'm taking requests too!DROP ME A LINE or leave a comment below if you'd like to nominate a plaque for inclusion in the seriesElizabethan School, High Barnet EN5…

A
London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your
guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all
London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.

Outside in all weathers, the London Walks guides know a thing or two about battling the cold weather.In this short series we're sharing our winter weather tips with our lovely London Walkers, a hardy bunch who join us rain or sleet in the winter months.David adds…

SO DARLING, DARLING
STAND BY ME, OH STAND BY ME

Surely the last word*
on Guides’ Tips for Winter Walkers.

Of the female
persuasion at any rate.

Let’s count the ways –
sashay them words down the catwalk.

1.It’s
rubberless

2.Comes with
a printed, legally binding guarantee to keep out all the rain. That’s “all the
rain” – not “the rain”, not “some of the rain”, not “most of the rain.”

3.It’s a
woollen whipcord

4.As opposed
to a cold, clammy, linen-like fabric

5.It’s made
from Omne Tempus Cloth (need I say more?)

6.It’s
multipurpose – a boon to the War-worker and the “open-air” woman

7.It’s
“Ready-for-wear” or “To measure”

8.It’s
famous.

9.It’ll
stand-by you.

10.It’s
triple-proofed.

11.It comes
from “A Great House”

12.It’s got
Madge inside it.

13.It’s
London. We ain’t talking Oshkosh here.

14.The deal
closer – it’s made by men-Tailors

15.It’s got
no end of tongue-in-cheek possibilities.

*Make that words
plural. And illustrated words at that.

A
London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your
guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all
London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.

This new In Focus season brings the classic London
Walks forensic approach to our most famous streets. In the second walk of the
series we turn the spotlight on Whitehall.

Whitehall contains more landmarks of our island’s
history than any other street.

The casual visitor misses 99 percent of what’s there.
We don’t.

The casual visitor gets the popsicle. We feast on the
full banquet.

And the guide? Since “it all comes down to the
guiding.” Some of you have probably guessed: it’s Fiona.

Fiona If this were the British military Fiona would be
“the most decorated member of the Armed Forces.” The full fruit salad. All four
badges. Blue Badge, City of London, City of Westminster, and Clerkenwell. And
not just badges – there are any number of badged guides in London who are
pretty run of the mill. Fiona wins the gold medal, the big one, the Numero Uno
award: Blue Badge Guide of the Year, City of Westminster Guide of the Year,
etc.

Final thought about In Focus walks generally. They’ve
been a long time a-coming – been
like a wave forming and building, a wheel under the skin – to the London Walks
programme. All things considered they’re practically a tectonic shift for us.
Something has finally broken free. Moved. Which is by way of saying, famously
we – London Walks – do untrodden paths, quaint little back streets and hidden
courtyards. That’s always been our specialty. We want to get off main drags,
get away from the London equivalent of Times Square and the Champs-Élysées. We
want to nook and cranny London. Take people into the little backstreets they’d
never find off their own bat. That’s not to say we didn’t know about Parliament
Square and Whitehall and Trafalgar Square and the Strand (the four In Focus
walks that will debut the series). We of course knew about them. Knew full well
that in many ways they're the most nutrient-rich tesserae of London terrain. We
just didn't think fine-tooth combing a place like Parliament Square – spending
a whole walk there – was really us. We had enough to be getting on with in the
back forty patches we'd staked out as our turf.

And there was one other thing. We had to bring our
market – our community – along.
Get our following, our walkers, ready for this. It wasn’t that London Walks – “walks
for grownups” – was going to stop doing what we’ve excelled at for half a
century. It was that we were going to add to the programme a strand that was
counter-intuitive to the London Walks ethos. So counter-intuitive that we felt
our market – our following – had to ripen. Be ready for this step, these steps.
Our sixth sense is telling us that hour has come round. That we’ll get some
takers for walks that look extremely closely at the likes of Parliament Square
(and Whitehall and Trafalgar Square and the Strand and… well, there’s lots more
in the pipeline).

Meet Fiona at Westminster Station Exit 4 10:45:a.m Saturday 6th FebruaryA
London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your
guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all
London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.

Campaigners
battling to prevent London’s historic Liberty of Norton Folgate being
redeveloped with corporate office towers have today been allowed a benchmark
legal challenge against the Mayor of London.

High
Court judge Mr Justice Collins has granted permission for a Judicial Review to
the Spitalfields Trust against the Mayor waving through the plans in breach of
legal procedures.

The
Judicial Review challenges Boris Johnson for over-ruling Tower Hamlets Council,
which has twice rejected the developers’ scheme in partnership with the City of
London Corporation which has been buying up properties in the Georgian
conservation area over the past two years.

MUSIC:
The Half Moon in Herne Hill is campaigning to save its music licence…

The
Half Moon Pub in Herne Hill, is set to reopen its doors this summer but will
cease to be a live music venue under new proposals.

Responding
to a public petition which has attracted more than 6,000 signatures, the Mayor of
London has now urged the pub’s new management to “continue with a regular
programme of new and cutting edge grassroots music acts”.

CULTURE:
The Freeedom To Party protest takes place today in Shoreditch. “This will be
one to remember," say organisers. "Let them know we mean peace, love,
unity and respect. All we want to do is dance.”

More
than 2,500 people plan to dance through the streets of east London on Saturday
in a call to end persecution of the UK’s free party movement.

The
Freedom to Party protest is due to kick off at 2.30pm in Shoreditch. “Remember
to bring all portable speakers, mini rigs, 12v rigs etc anything that plays
music,” organisers have said.

More
than 2,500 people have indicated they will attend the event, which has been
organised on Facebook. A similar number have said they are interested in
attending.

Our weekly slot in which we point you in the
direction of other happenings and events in our great city. A new exhibition, a
gig, a museum, a pop-up-shop – the best of London within a few minutes of aLondon
Walkswalking
tour.

Westminster
Cathedral Viewing Gallery

The
Shard and the London Eye often upstage Westminster Cathedral’s viewing gallery
these days. But the view from the Roman Catholic cathedral 64 metres (210 feet)
above street level should still be on your London bucket list for 2016 –
especially if you are on a budget. The view is certainly spectacular, but best of
all, the experience an unhurried one – take your time and take it all in.

I
enjoyed this piece from Canadian Broadcaster Stephen Quinn, a meditation on
ditching the car and getting out on one's hind legs …

Walking
is free, it feels good, it helps me think and it lets me see the city in a way
that just isn’t possible otherwise. Sticking to the same route brings the
comfort of the familiar, and changing up the route brings new discoveries.
Never before have I been so conscious of the seasons.

There
are familiar characters along the way, like the man I have named Strongman – a
triangular, broad-chested older man with a thick neck, a shiny bald head and a
grey handlebar moustache. He is perpetually wearing shorts, and marches every
morning in the opposite direction with the sort of purpose reserved for soldiers
who know that victory is near. I may spot him anywhere between the viaduct and
Commercial Drive, depending on my timing. He covers a lot of ground quickly.

The
g-word – gentrification – is consuming New York City's former dowdy
neighbourhoods every bit as rapidly as it is here in London. This piece from
The Gothamist caught my eye, focusing as it does on the g-word (one of my fave
rants) and the role of the Doctor Marten boot (my fave shoe for leading walking
tours, see earlier post) and its role as a signifier of gentrification…

A
Doc Martens store is opening on Bedford Avenue, furthering Williamsburg's
well-documented SoHo-ification. But do not shake your fist at the gods of
gentrification, for Doc Martens is a much more appropriate North Brooklyn
transplant than the J. Crews and Ralph Laurens that have preceded it. Because
Doc Martens boots are, in fact, the Williamsburg of Shoes.

Thanks
to London Walker Michelle Siedel and London cabbie and blogger Richard Cudlip
(what a fine and resonant newspaperman's name that is Mr Cudlip, most
appropriate for a blogger!) for pointing me in the direction of this grab from
Street View capturing Richard P leading one of his famous Beatles walking tours
for London Walks…

Have a great week! London Spy will return next Saturday.A
London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your
guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all
London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.